Connection Between Epigenome, Selective Mutability, Evolution, and Human Disease
Li, Harris et al., PLoS Genetics
Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine and elsewhere propose a "connection between the epigenome, selective mutability, evolution, and human disease" based on the findings of their study on associations of structural mutability with germline DNA methylation and with non-allelic homologous recombination mediated by low-copy repeats. "Combined evidence from four human sperm methylome maps, human genome evolution, structural polymorphisms in the human population, and previous genomic and disease studies consistently points to a strong association of germline hypomethylation and genomic instability," the Baylor-led team writes.
Let the Games Begin
The success of games like Foldit has shown researchers how useful it can be to put a problem in front of a wide group of gamers and science buffs to get help in solving it. Other researchers are now creating games for a variety of scientific fields to harness the same crowd-sourced power, says Popular Science's Rebecca Boyle. At Carnegie Mellon University, Adrien Treuille and his team have developed EteRNA, a game where players can create new RNAs for the researchers to synthesize in the lab for medical or biotechnology purposes, she says. Another game called MoonZoo allows would-be astronomers to look at NASA photos of the moon and flag rock formations for further exploration. And WhaleFM lets players listen to orca calls and match them up with similar whale calls. There are many others extending into several branches of scientific research, Boyle adds.
"If you think about it, you are able to increase the population of biochemists focusing on a specific problem by a factor of three or four," Foldit creator Zoran Popović tells Boyle. "If you could do a similar thing for all the problems that are facing humanity today, it would help not just science, but society at large, a huge amount." Popović is currently building a new game called Biologic, in which players will be asked to create synthetic molecules, Boyle says.
In some limited instances the
In some limited instances the recruitment of gamers to tackle certain scientific problems may be compelling, but for most problems in molecular biology and other life sciences this is really impractical. Unless savants are engaged in these problems, the data are just too complex for meaningful explorations within video games on i-Pads. While a growing number of people with Internet access in their hands do appear to have a lot of free time on their hands, encouraging them to pursue these problems will ultimately waste a huge amount of human resources.
The development of synthetic or artificial intelligent systems like IBM's Watson will beat out a whole army of gamers in solving most problems due to their capacity to access and process vast data sets and run millions of simulations quickly and efficiently. It is going to be hard enough to appreciate what the synthetic intelligent systems will soon discover with our individual limited capacity for knowledge.
The development of video games as suggested could encourage a few more people to consider careers as scientists, but for the vast majority of gamers it will have negligible impact. However, from most of the popular video games available today, we will have a wonderful pool of talented future soldiers that will be fit (even if they are health compromised from poor diet and physical inactivity) and ready for deployment as cyberspies and remote control operators of drones in future battles for freedom on the planet.
Sounds a lot like
Sounds a lot like evolution...